你好 Ni Hao!
China-3 days. In Shanghai most of those days, but I was able to do one day trip to Zhou Zhang (“China’s Venice”). Shanghai was a very big city and the architecture of the city was very interesting because it was an utter mish-mash of different styles. Yes, as a city there was dirt (inevitable) but I thought it was a rather beautiful city.
Ate a lot of delicious food. Chinese dumplings were awesome!! (Sorry Korea, you lost hands down). And they should not be compared to the pathetic fare I’ve eaten in the U.S. My favorite was a type of dumpling called, Xiao Long Bao, which has soup inserted into the dumpling along with the meat (or vegetables). First,m you should carefully bite a hole in the dumpling, letting the liquid drain into your spoon. Second, drink the soup. Then eat the dumpling. If you just put the dumpling in your mouth without following these three steps – you will scald your mouth with the hot liquid (I read about this beforehand and avoided the situation^.^v). My other favorite Chinese treat was CoCo – a store known for their coffees/teas – that had jelly like things in them (i think the black jelly circles were made of tapioca). In the U.S. this is known as Bubble tea. I found it to be a surprising amount of fun chewing and drinking. My favorite drink was the coffee milk mixed with pudding, pieces of coconut, and jellies. Yum! If I were braver I would have tried the lemonade and prunes drink….scary. Anyway, enough about food…. (I could go on and on because often my trips become eating trips..but this enough for now).
Mellow in South Korea 